How often have you heard it? Sometimes in church as masses of people clamor after a song or rousing message, crying out, with hands raised, “Praise the Lord.” Or perhaps, you are telling a story to someone and throughout the telling, the listener interposes several “praise the Lords.” It’s as though the phrase has become a kind of “gesundheit” or “bless you.” But have we lost some of its deeper meaning? 
The word praise can be translated into a number of different iterations, but in the Hebrew, most often when it is associated with hal-lu [as in hallelujah] it means “shine.” The first image that comes to my mind then is “Shine, O God, on this situation” or “shine on me.” It is a plea, a request, a desire. The old song, “Shine, Jesus, Shine” then is really like saying Hallelu Jesus Hallelu.
Praise the Lord.
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!
[Psalm 147:1, NIV]
I have gotten into the habit of thinking of of the phrase, “Praise the Lord” as “good job.” And I suppose, that’s not entirely wrong, but I want to elaborate on the concept now and think about the Light of God illuminating the moment.
“What we are telling you now is the very message we heard from Him: God is pure light, undimmed by darkness of any kind.” [I John 1:5, The Voice]
This is the Hallelujah! This is the praise.
Meditations from Zion 
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